The state's highest criminal court on Wednesday overturned the conviction of David Temple, finding Harris County prosecutors deliberately withheld evidence and deprived the former Katy football coach of a fair trial in the 1999 death of his pregnant wife.

It is the latest twist in Temple's contentious legal saga - and one of a series of recent appeals that question whether Harris County prosecutors crossed ethical and legal lines to win murder cases.

In an 11-page opinion issued Wednesday, a majority of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals found that Temple's constitutional rights were violated because of the misconduct of legendary prosecutor Kelly Siegler, a skilled and dramatic trial prosecutor who later became the star of her own reality TV show.

Siegler, who promotes herself on her website as "passionate, aggressive and committed," has defended her decisions in the Temple case but could not be reached Wednesday for comment.

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For Darren and Kevin Temple, David's brothers, it was the news they'd been waiting for.

They were packing up to drive from Dallas to Katy for a family Thanksgiving gathering when they got the word their brother would be freed and stood another chance of being cleared. They had been checking the website of the court of appeals every Wednesday morning, when opinions are posted, since their brother's case went to appeal in 2014.

Darren Temple said David was "overwhelmed" when he got the news Wednesday morning.

"We're all shocked quite frankly," the brother said at a news conference in a Katy parking lot. "We have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving."

Nine years after Temple was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2007, Temple's attorneys convinced the conservative Texas court that county prosecutors violated the law by withholding significant evidence about an alternative suspect and other information that could have cast doubt on his guilt.

The Temple opinion concludes that Harris County policy in that era was to routinely withhold information from defense attorneys about alternative suspects or witnesses identified by police that the prosecutor did not plan to call to testify at trial, based on testimony offered as part of the appeal.

It was the fifth time since 2015 that the Texas appeals court has ordered a review of murder convictions based on evidence of prosecutorial misconduct in the Harris County District Attorney's office in cases dating back to the 2000s.

Incoming District Attorney Kim Ogg, who takes office in January, will be asked to review the case and ultimately decide whether to appeal the decision or retry Temple in the 17-year-old murder case. Ogg would not comment, but a spokesman said she planned to order a "thorough review of the evidence and the conduct of prosecutors in the Temple case employing the high ethical standards she has promised."

Temple's long-time appellate attorney on Wednesday was already focused on trying to arrange bail for his client.

"First things first: We get David out of jail," said attorney Stan Schneider.

Schneider said Temple could be eligible to bond out of prison soon, depending on the state's decision on whether it will retry the case.

Wife found dead in home

Belinda Temple, a special education teacher at Katy High School, was found dead in a closet of her home on Jan. 11, 1999. Investigators concluded she was kneeling when shot execution-style in the back of the head with a shotgun. She was seven months pregnant with the couple's second child.

David, who coached football at Alief Hastings High School, was in the midst of an affair with a co-worker and quickly became a suspect. But Temple denied guilt and his defense attorneys tried to establish that an intruder, possibly a neighbor, committed the crime. Temple testified in his 2007 trial that he arrived home to find the back door open and a window broken, then rushed inside to find his wife dead.

The 2007 trial was a clash of titans - with Temple represented by legendary defense attorney Dick DeGuerin and the prosecution team led by Siegler, who'd won dozens of high-profile convictions.

Siegler, along with her co-counsel, emphasized at trial that Temple failed to account for 45 minutes in the story he gave, that signs of the supposed burglary in the home seemed faked and that Temple's extramarital affair proved he had a motive to kill his wife. The jury sided with the prosecution, and Temple was sentenced to life in prison.

Over time, Temple's appellate attorney Schneider and his team kept digging through records. In a powerful appeal, Schneider ultimately revealed that he'd found reams of evidence that had been hidden and other alleged impropriety by prosecutors. It was enough for the Court of Criminal Appeals to order a district judge to conduct a fact-finding hearing.

In a 2015 hearing before Visiting Judge Larry Gist, Schneider described Temple's original trial as "a story of lies, misdirection and cover-up."

After 10 weeks and more than 30 witness testimonies, including from case prosecutors, Gist concurred that Harris County prosecutors had crossed ethical and legal lines and hidden vital police reports, denying Temple a fair trial. In a 19-page decision, he outlined 36 separate instances of misconduct.

In a landmark case known as Brady vs. Maryland, the U.S. Supreme court ruled that prosecutors handling criminal cases must disclose evidence favorable to the defense. Denying such evidence violates a defendant's constitutional right to due process.

Siegler, in the hearing and afterward, has defended her decisions about what she had withheld from Temple's original defense team as tough but legal.

Records kept from defense

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals found clear Brady violations.

"A prosecutor who errs on the side of withholding evidence from the defense runs the risk of violating Brady if the reviewing court ultimately decides that it should have been turned over. The habeas judge found, and we agree, that this prosecutor's misconception regarding her duty under Brady was 'of enormous significance,'" the opinion says.

The court majority found that DeGuerin was denied access to approximately 1,400 pages of offense reports that included a detailed investigation into an alternate suspect - a teenage neighbor of the Temples who had previously burglarized a home and stolen two shotguns similar to the one used in the murder.

The court ruling noted that Siegler's actions apparently reflected Harris County policies in that era based on testimony from both the prosecutor and the defense counsel that the prosecution would frequently "close" its file prior to trial so as not provide certain information to the defense.

The case was originally prosecuted under then-Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal, but the current administration under Devon Anderson has continued to defend current and former prosecutors' conduct. A spokesman for the office declined comment.

For DeGuerin, Temple's original trial attorney, the decision is a vindication.

"It's been a long time coming," DeGuerin said. "It's especially gratifying to know that the CCA has agreed with what we said all along - that the case was won by the prosecutor cheating."

To other defense attorneys, the freshly fortified revelations of prosecutorial misconduct in the Temple case - and in others - underscore a more troubling long-term pattern.

JoAnne Musick, a former president of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Attorneys Association, said the Temple case and three other 2016 appeals illustrate troubling problems with Harris County prosecutors' conduct in murder cases. In each case, she argued, important evidence was withheld by "the same group of prosecutors that were all trained in the same era and came from the same culture.

"Definitely, the Harris County prosecutors' 'win-at-all-costs' mentality is on trial," she said.

Other cases under review

Death row inmate Alfred Dewayne Brown was freed from death row in 2015 after the courts found Harris County prosecutors failed to disclose a phone record that would have helped his defense prove that Brown was elsewhere when a 2003 robbery and murder of a police officer occurred.

And just this month, the state appeals court granted relief to another Harris County murder defendant based on allegations of misconduct by prosecutors. On Nov. 2, the court found that prosecutors improperly concealed a deal that their star witness received in return for her testimony at convicted killer Kenneth Michael Headley's 2004 trial. Headley is appealing a life sentence.

The court also ordered hearings in two other high-profile capital murder appeals to examine other allegations of misconduct by prosecutors, one involving a death row inmate.

In one of those pending cases, state District Judge James Shoemake in Fort Bend County this month recommended that the Court of Criminal Appeals grant relief to Edward McGregor, who is serving a life sentence, based on claims that the state suppressed evidence and knowingly used false testimony that was apparently fabricated by a state prisoner and others.

A Harris County assistant district attorney served as a special prosecutor in that case. The Fort Bend DA is continuing to appeal that case.

The appeals court also is considering claims of prosecutorial misconduct made against two other Harris County prosecutors by Linda Carty, a British citizen and grandmother, who had been on death row for more than a dozen years.

Carty was granted a hearing based on allegations that prosecutors withheld numerous witness statements, recordings and other potentially exculpatory information. In the Carty case, a visiting judge ruled that information had been improperly withheld, but concluded the misconduct was not significant enough to recommend a new trial for Carty.